CSU celebrates Powerhouse Energy Campus grand opening

Russell Geisthardt checks out the sundolier Thursday during the grand opening of Colorado State University’s Powerhouse Energy Campus in Fort Collins. The sundolier uses a rooftop system to concentrate the sun into a natural light source.
(Photo:
Erin Hull/The Coloradoan
)

Colorado State University's Powerhouse Energy Campus in north Fort Collins celebrated its grand-opening Thursday with an event that drew hundreds of community members, academics, energy experts and Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Crews recently wrapped up construction on a 65,000-square-foot expansion of the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory, or EECL, which got its start in 1992 in the former Fort Collins power plant.

Officials say the updated, 100,000-square-foot facility will give rise to a new era where professors, students, policy drivers, business leaders and researchers work under one roof to explore the likes of clean energy, biofuels, gas technology, smart grids and how the energy industry impacts environmental health.

That they may bump into one another in the hall and have opportunities to more quickly turn ideas into viable products, create new policies and establish new ways of thinking is key to forging ahead, officials said.

"We need all of those disciplines working together ... to change the way the world does energy," said Bryan Wilson, executive director of CSU's Energy Institute, the umbrella over the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory, former Gov. Bill Ritter's Center for the New Energy Economy, Advanced Biofuel Lab and many more entities.

Such collaborations have a long history at CSU, leaders said, where people with eight university colleges study facets of energy. This facility will take those partnerships "to the next level," CSU Executive Vice President and Provost Rick Miranda said.

With an in-house incubator, the goal is to push research into the marketplace. One such example is Envirofit International. Formed in 2003 as a spinoff company out of the Engines and Energy Conversion Lab, known for its clean cook stoves designed to prevent millions from dying of smoke inhalation in developing countries.

Hickenlooper liked the Powerhouse Energy Campus model to the state's Innovation Network, which seeks to transform research into ideas into businesses.

"This is the ultimate greenhouse for that kind of transformation were we can take an idea and immerse it in an entrepreneur, surround it with some talent ... make sure there's some capital there, and what you see is the rapid acceleration and creation of jobs," Hickenlooper said.

Mayor Karen Weitkunat said the campus "will be major catalyst" for economic development in North Fort Collins, and is ideally situated near Woodward's new campus to the east, the Rocky Mountain Innosphere to the north and Museum of Discovery to the west.

As much as it's a facility for people, Wilson said the campus is a laboratory designed with energy in mind. With the highest-possible green-building certification, the campus features such things as roof-top solar panels, and radiant heating and cooling achieved when warm or cool water is routed through 26 miles of tubing in the floors.

There's also a "sundelier" that ushers natural light from the roof down to the building's lower floors.

CSU Powerhouse Energy Campus

• Where: 430 N. College Ave., Fort Collins

• What: Most will know the campus as home to CSU's Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory. In October 2012, CSU announced that construction had begun on an $18.5 million, 65,000-foot expansion of the formerly 35,000-square-foot lab. The university plans to celebrate the campus's grand opening in April.

• What goes on here: With the expansion was born the Energy Institute, the umbrella over the Engines and Energy Conversion lab, former Gov. Bill Ritter's Center for the New Energy Economy, Advanced Biofuel Lab and other entities. Officials say they are excited to bring energy experts from multiple disciplines together under one roof.

Approximately 250 people will work in the now 100,000-square-foot facility, including about 35 faculty members. In addition to lab space, it is home to a community room, space to teach classes, room for 25 companies and more.